PCB says selection after consulting ACU

LAHORE – Reacting to a statement of International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive Haroon Lorgat in which he has stated that ICC has no part to play in selection of any team, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said on Sunday that the board consulted ICC's Anti-corruption Unit for the inclusion of Wahab Riaz.PCB spokesperson Nadeem Sarwar said: “The PCB endorses the statement of ICC's Chief Executive that it is the authority of the individual cricket board of any country to decide about the selection of team players and the PCB never stated that ICC is involved in team selection. The factual position is that in pursuing its zero tolerance policy towards corruption, the PCB, as a precautionary measure, approached ICC's Anti-corruption Unit (ACU) regarding any such information on Wahab Riaz.”In the absence of any observation and clearance from the ACU, the PCB proceeded with selecting Wahab for the England series, he added. He said the PCB was already aware that it was ICC members’ right to select the team and never approached the ICC on selection matters. However, ACU is established to facilitate members to deal with corruption issues and it is in this regard ICC was contacted by the PCB, he added.“We would like ACU to share any information on our players in order to jointly proceed in such matters. We hope we are able to establish that protocol in future. The PCB has established a vigilance division for this purpose and we wish to emphasise that we shall deal with such issues with iron hand”, he concluded.